My sales team is obviously very experienced when it comes to selling radio ads, but we are trying to push them to sell more search engine optimization (SEO), Google adwords, (pay-per-click), social media marketing, and website development.

We are still lagging behind competitors in this arena.

Any ideas, resources or training companies that can help us get our digital marketing sales up?

I recently did an analysis of radio websites. Overwhelming number has no reason to click-on. Without clicks your digital product is hard to sell. If you're getting more clicks than anyone in the market you'd have something big to sell. You do know you can get click #'s for your site?
Some suggestions:
Sell in combo with on-air spots.
Graphically make it exciting. Many sites just look alike, say the same thing. Scan stations across the country and find the ones that pop and there you are. I don't know your market but is your sites blow them away?
Run contest's that make you go to the website.
Up-to-the-minute 24/7 traffic and weather reports. That's one reason the news/talk guy's get high traffic. Your website can become the "news/talk" station for younger demos.
As we know in intimate radio the personalities become "friends" with the audience. Little space in dedicated to the talent. Bios are short and don't give you an insight to the person(s). I believe putting the stations talent in the front window rather than the music connects to the audience better. Assume you have competitions that have similar playlists. Recently while driving down a highway saw one billboard for a station with pictures of top recording artists and then station ID. Few miles ahead I saw the same artists on a billboard from another station. We in radio know what AOR is and Hot AOR but listeners don't.
You can hire people on Craigslist to keep clicking the website and click to advertisers
Lou Kasman
Ann Arbor, MI

"You can hire people on Craigslist to keep clicking the website and click to advertisers"

If you have to resort to this then you have bigger problems than your sales staff. If an advertiser finds out about this practice your credibility is shot and you will lose money. Everything Lou said up to that point sounds good...Avoid that last one, though. You'll regret it.

With the way google now does searches, pushing ads on a radio station website is a waste of time. The only way that I have found to get people to your site is by blasting it on the station airways.

SEO's is a thing in the past. Think about it, why would you go to a radio station website? Schedule, call in numbers, stream feed? Nothing turns me off quicker than looking at a site that has so much on it, I can't find things easily.

Put ads of running commercials on the site. Change them as the customer leaves and add them as an extra gimmick for sales.

Dedicate a couple of people to only deal with Digital Media. Either from the the current staff or hire a couple of people. If selling Digital is the only way for a someone to pay their bills and eat, you will start to see billing in this area.

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming sales training textbook. When completed, you can find it at www.spikesantee.com.

Why Sell Digital Marketing

Borrell Associates, Inc., an advertising tracking firm, reports that more than 85% of Radio advertisers are buying some form of digital advertising and 75% are buying Radio and digital advertising together. The study surveyed over 10,000 Radio stations and 1,300 local advertisers. According to the report, the average Radio station cluster sold over $1 million in digital advertising. There is nothing but growth in the forecast. Digital advertising revenue represents approximately 10% of the average Radio station’s overall revenue.

The Borrell Associates, Inc. report indicates that 79% of Radio advertisers surveyed said they buy the Radio station’s digital advertising product when offered. However, only 57% say their Radio salespeople have offered them a digital product.

Seventy-two percent of the local businesses in the survey reported that they see digital advertising proposals from your competitors, the newspaper, the yellow pages, TV, and cable advertising salespeople. If you don’t learn how to sell your Radio station’s digital products, your Radio advertising customers will end up buying digital advertising from your competitor.

Even with such compelling evidence, we still encounter Radio salespeople who refuse to embrace the value of selling their Radio station’s digital advertising products. They make up all sorts of excuses to avoid taking the steps of self-improvement to learn about their new product line. They have a fixed mindset.

The report’s conclusion confirms our anecdotal evidence from working with thousands of Radio salespeople. The authors of the report state, “There’s something wrong. The vast majority (82%) of (radio) station managers told us that only 1 in 3 of their radio customers are buying digital advertising from them. Yet 85% of the 1,500 radio advertisers we surveyed said they’re buying some sort of digital media. Radio often has the exact same digital offerings as print and TV competitors. So the problem may be in the sales pitch.”